Top fitness trends for 2014

Indo Yoga Boards are 6 feet long on rollers, offering the same instability as SUP Yoga. (Photo courtesy of Indo Yoga...)

If you're one of the many people who made a New Year's resolution to up the ante on your health and fitness, take a look below at what experts believe will be 2014's biggest fitness trends in the Los Angeles area.

From virtual personal trainers to a new variation of SUP Yoga, these trends could help you in whatever fitness resolutions you take on.

A NEW VARIATION OF SUP YOGA

Stand-Up Paddleboard (SUP) Yoga may have been a popular fitness trend in 2013, but this year you won't have to get into the water to get the same kind of workout. The Indo Yoga Board, developed by Hunter Joslin, is a 6-foot-long board on four rockers that provides the same instability as SUP Yoga, requiring you to engage your muscles even more than traditional yoga in order to keep your balance.

With classes already on the East Coast, Indo Yoga Board is making its debut in Los Angeles this month with a class at Yoga Loft in Manhattan Beach. Or you can purchase the board for home use for about $375.

SurfSet Boards are slightly different than Indo Yoga Boards but the concept is the same. Classes are offered at a variety of locations throughout the Los Angeles area, including SURFSET LA in Hermosa Beach, 220 Fit in Santa Monica, and a variety of Crunch gyms. Donna Cyrus, senior vice president of programming for Crunch, says they were the first to have the program and confirms it's becoming incredibly popular. “It's going to pop up everywhere pretty soon,” she says.

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H.I.I.T.

High-intensity interval training continues to be a popular exercise method this year. H.I.I.T. sessions can last four to 30 minutes with short, intense bursts of cardio followed by a period of recovery. In October, the American College of Sports Medicine said H.I.I.T.would be 2014's top fitness trends. The P90X and Insanity workouts, which were popular the last couple years, are good examples of this form of exercise.

Cyrus agrees — many of Crunch's classes are now this style of workout — citing the popularity of CrossFit has made an impact on programming for gyms and personal trainers. She also notes a popular H.I.I.T. workout is Jillian Michael's 3-2-1 interval system, which is a 24-minute workout mixing two minutes of strength, two minutes of cardio and one minute of abs.

COMBO CLASSES

Both Cyrus and Bullock were quick to mention the trend of combo classes, where 60-minute classes are divided into two different styles of workout. Particular classes that are becoming popular are those that include indoor cycling. Cyrus notes the various spin studios that have continued popping up have increased people's awareness of the benefits of spin.

One such studio is Kimberly Fowler's Yas Fitness Centers, which now has locations from Silver Lake to Costa Mesa. Fowler is considered the first person to combine spin and yoga into a hybrid class. Other popular combination classes include yoga and TRX, yoga and weights, or spin and weights.

CLEAN EATING

Clean eating, a popular hashtag on Instagram and Twitter, is a simple concept based on eating foods at their purest form, says Bullock. “While there's no hard and fast definition, clean eating is a very simple concept: Eat real, wholesome food unprocessed, while avoiding processed and fast foods packed with added ingredients that compromise the health,” Bullock says. For instance, Bullock says if you're a “clean eater” you would choose a fresh orange over processed orange juice or quinoa instead of white flour.

Nothing is off limits and it's not about counting calories, and because of this, Bullock says the trend isn't going anywhere. “Eating clean has come full circle from times before technology made everything available to us, to the times when we had to eat off the land and eat in-season foods. Eating clean is trending in response to our need for better health,” she explains.

Cyrus also believes this is a trend that will stay.She thinks its popularity is due to people becoming more savvy with diets and also because healthy body sizes, rather than skin and bones, is the look more desirable in today's society. “Super, super skinny is not what people are looking for anymore, they want muscle tone,” Cyrus explains.

VIRTUAL FITNESS CLASSES

Group fitness classes and personal trainers are nothing new, but in today's technology-obsessed world, you can do it virtually, either at the gym or in the privacy of your own home. Live-skype training is available from many instructors, like Mary Helen Bowers, who trained Natalie Portman for her role in “Black Swan” and also trains many Victoria Secret models. Bowers, who is based in New York, offers Ballet Beautiful virtual group training or personal instruction.

There are many types of virtual classes available, but you can also get virtual personalized fitness routines, says Bullock. “After speaking with you via email or phone, qualified personal trainers customize a workout program for you based on your individual goals and level,” Bullock says. “Because technology has made the world a much smaller place, trainers give plenty of motivation via emails, texts and phone calls to keep you on track.”

Bullock says these virtual instructors are particularly good for people who need the flexibility of when they can do the class. She also says many of the trainers keep the cost to a minimum and if you don't like the class, you can just turn it off.

Anytime Fitness already has a program called Fitness on Request, which is a 24-hour kiosk providing virtual classes at the gym. The gym is currently in a pilot phase of a new program called Les Mills Virtual classes. Video versions of five classes (BodyPump, , BodyCombat, BodyFlow,, CXWorx, Sh'Bam) led by professional instructors will be available 24 hours a day at 10 Anytime Fitness locations.

The classes are screened on a projector with a sound system to provide the feeling of a real group exercise experience. Though not currently available in Los Angeles, Anytime Fitness' Director of Exercise Programming Shannon Fable says that once it is fully rolled out, it will be available for any club that already has Fitness on Request.

Fun workouts are always trending because they help take people's minds off the fact they are actually working out. One such class is Crunch's Pound program which brings out your inner rock star while working up a sweat. Using weighted drum sticks, participants use the floor as their drum in a variety of movements, hitting it to the rhythm of the music.

“It's a lot of fun and people feel like rock stars afterward and they forget how hard they're working,” Cyrus says. “It's like nothing else in fitness right now, but it's doing really well.”

Another fun workout is Equinox's Tread & Shred class which looks similar to OK, Go's music video for their song “Here it Goes Again” where the band does a choreographed routine using treadmills. Equinox's Tread & Shred class uses the treadmill to do more than just walk or run. Participants do a variety of exercises aimed at strengthening, balancing and toning, including side shuffles, backwards running, and more. The class, and its West Hollywood and Beverly Hills instructor David Siik, were featured by Huffington Post in October.

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